


Sacred Ground

by petrichoral



Category: Hyakujitsu no Bara | Maiden Rose
Genre: Body Horror (mild), Gen, Loyalty, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petrichoral/pseuds/petrichoral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Klaus believes in things he can touch, not superstitions and mountain spirits. He doesn't see any problem in cutting across a sacred mountain to surprise the enemy. </p><p>But the spirits are more real than he thinks. Now he has to decide whether to risk bringing their curse down on Taki, or abandon Taki and let it run its course - though he can't see any way he's getting out of that alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacred Ground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heeroluva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heeroluva/gifts).



> Treat written to the prompt "if Taki's gods were real". Thank you to Smilla and UndomielRegina for tireless betaing and encouragement!

The first sign that something was up was when Klaus’ radio crackled into life.

“Fifth Company, come in,” an adjutant’s voice came through the static as Klaus pushed his way back into the dugout. “Captain Klaus von Wolfstadt to Headquarters. Repeat, Captain Klaus von Wolfstadt to Headquarters.”

Klaus swore as gunfire sounded to the west. “Check with the sentries at Post Three,” he snapped to his lieutenant, although it sounded far enough away that it should be Fourth Company’s area. He grabbed the radio. “Klaus here. Does it have to be _now_? We’re having a nice little fucking tea party here.”

Another burst of static and the voice on the radio changed to a familiar one. “Do I have to come and drag you out by the collar?” Taki’s voice said. “Get back here, Klaus.”

 _Sentries undisturbed_ , the lieutenant signalled to him. “Fine,” Klaus said into the mouthpiece. “I’ll just finish my cake.”

“Do not speak to Colonel Taki like that!” the first voice snapped from the radio.

Klaus grinned. “Yes, my lord. On my way.” He clicked the radio off. “Check the approaches to the north, just in case,” he told the lieutenant.

“Sir,” the lieutenant said, somehow managing to maintain military neutrality and radiate mild disapproval at the same time. “I believe we’ve reported that nothing will come from the north.”

Klaus’ eyes narrowed. “Yeah, right, I heard the briefing,” he said. “Magic spirit mountain, of course, the spooks will scare off everyone. This is a bloody war zone, not a kid’s bedtime story. Keep up patrols as if the enemy might come bursting out of there with fifty infantry at any moment. Got it?”

“Sir,” the lieutenant said flatly, unconvinced.

“Do it,” Klaus ordered, and ducked out of the bunker. Every time he turned around here, there seemed to be another superstition waiting to trip him up. The way this damn _purity_ notion tied Taki’s hands was bad enough, but it got ridiculous when you couldn’t send patrols up a mountain because there was supposed to be some bloody shrine at the top of it.

The stink of gunpowder grew stronger as Klaus picked his way through the trenches to HQ. They were old trenches: they’d fought here before and they’d fight here again, but this time it was only a minor skirmish. No overlay of blood and death here, just mud and sweat. As Klaus turned the last corner to HQ a sudden northerly breeze swept across the trench, bringing a clear, sharp scent that made the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. Wood smoke and earth. It smelled like an autumn bonfire, though it was late spring.

 _A farmer’s having a bonfire_ , Klaus told himself, as he strode up to the HQ guards and gave the passwords. _Get a hold on yourself._ He wasn’t going to be spooked by smells.

Inside the hot, cramped bunker, most of the senior officers were crowded around the small table spread with maps. It sounded like they were all holding two individual conversations at once. Something was happening, but Klaus couldn’t pick out any coherent threads in the noise. Taki stood straight in his immaculate uniform at the head of the table, his eyes narrowed and scanning the group. A major and a lieutenant-colonel were both forcefully attempting to make points at him. Taki was the only one not sweating. _Is he made of ice?_ Klaus thought.

In the middle of one particularly vehement point, Taki’s gaze shifted. His eyes met Klaus’, and Klaus leaned his shoulders against the wall next to the door, crossed his arms and grinned. If Taki had summoned him, he must have already made a decision. He knew Klaus didn’t play well in conferences.

“Gentlemen,” Taki said, raising his voice to cut through the noise. “I believe I have heard enough.” The noise level dropped and heads turned in his direction. “I repeat: the direct attack is not viable. A frontal assault on the entrenchments will incur significant casualties. We need a raiding party to surprise them from the right flank.”

“The cost is too high,” the major beside him snapped.

“I believe I have made my thoughts known on that matter,” Taki said evenly. “I thank you for your opinions, but I have made up my mind. This meeting is dismissed.”

At his position by the door, Klaus nodded in satisfaction. He could feel the familiar, prickling rush of adrenaline curl up at the base of his spine, like a creature slowly rousing from sleep. Taki wanted him for the raiding party.

“I object in the strongest possible terms, Colonel Taki,” said another major from further down the table. Klaus recognised him as Major Yamazaki, one of the more stick-in-the-mud traditionalists. Klaus gave an ostentatious yawn.

“Your objections have been noted,” Taki said, with hidden sharpness in his voice, “as has your disregard of the fact I dismissed you ten seconds ago.”

That broke the meeting up, if reluctantly. Major Yamazaki passed Klaus as the officers were leaving, the scowl still set in his face. He glanced at Klaus and unexpectedly stopped.

“If you had any proper feeling for your master,” he growled, “you would persuade him to change his mind.”

Klaus didn’t move except to look down at him and raise his eyebrows, making a point of the inches of height that separated them. “Huh,” he said. “Is that right?”

“ _Foreigners_.” Major Yamazaki started to turn away in disgust.

Klaus was used to the contempt in that word, but this was more like suppressed fury. Odd. He cocked his head. “Something I should know?”

Major Yamazaki glared. “You’re his knight, dog,” he said. “It’s your duty to protect him from danger.”

“He’s not going to be on the raiding party,” Klaus said. He could feel a frown starting on his face.

“No, you barbarian fool!” Major Yamazaki said. Before he could launch into anything further, though, he was cut off by Taki calling Klaus’ name.

Klaus’ head turned like a compass needle swinging north. He pushed past the major without a further word.

Taki was dictating movement orders as aides bustled around him. As Klaus drew near, he looked up. “I expect you’ve guessed what this is about,” he said. “Take twenty snipers and strike at the main body of the enemy from their north-east flank. I have reinforcements to follow you. You’ll cut across the hill to the north.” He pushed aside a list to uncover a map, contour lines bunched across it like a snarl of thread. “Here’s the route I want you to take.”

A vague sense of unease had settled around Klaus. “Taki,” he said. “Yamazaki mentioned danger.” Taki lifted his eyes from the map and settled them on Klaus’ face, astonished. “Not to _me_ ,” Klaus added, insulted Taki would even think that. “To you.”

Taki didn’t immediately answer.

Klaus narrowed his eyes. “Those chattering jackdaws out there seemed to have a problem with this plan. Going to tell me why?”

Taki let out a quick, impatient breath. “It hardly concerns you.”

Klaus felt something red-hot and unpleasant stir in his veins. He leaned in until his face was inches from Taki’s. “I’d say it concerns me.”

Taki’s dark eyes had hardened in the way they only did when Klaus was challenging him. “You have your orders,” he said.

The corner of Klaus’ lip curled. “Tell me what’s going on,” he said, “or I don’t let you out of my sight.”

“You forget your place.”

“I remember my place _just fine_.”

“Then remind yourself how to ask questions with respect,” Taki said coolly. He laid a hand on Klaus’ chest and pushed him back. Klaus could still feel anger lodged like an ember inside him, flaring up at the rejection, but he let himself sway back. “Besides, from your point of view, the danger is entirely imaginary.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“ _Dammed superstition_ is what you call it, isn’t it?” Taki said. He traced a finger across a boundary on the map. The cartography of their two countries was similar in most ways, but Klaus hadn’t seen that red-and-white dotted line before. “This is the sacred boundary of Kougaoka Mountain. It has not been crossed by anyone but a priest since time immemorial. To violate it for the purposes of war is an act of desecration.” His finger paused. “One that, unfortunately, we have no choice but to commit.”

Klaus grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t have a problem with that.”

“You will take your men to the edge of the border,” Taki said. “Halt when you see the _shimenawa_ strung between the trees. The rope,” he clarified, at Klaus’ blank expression. “Hung with paper strips. Do you pay _no_ attention to anything around you?”

“We’re fighting a bloody war, I haven’t got time for opinions on decorating,” Klaus said. “Stay away from the magic rope, yeah, fine.”

“This is not a matter to be taken lightly,” Taki said sharply. “Once I have cut it at a point further south I will radio you.”

“Why the hell do you need to cut it?” Klaus said. “I know which end to hold a pair of scissors.”

“Because I am the commander,” Taki said. “The rest of the men must see me do it to have confidence in our course of action.”

Klaus thought of his lieutenant and shrugged acknowledgement. He could buy that, at least.

“You have your orders,” Taki said, folding the map and handing it to Klaus. “Get going.”

 _Magic rope and paper_ , Klaus thought disparagingly, but back at Fourth Company, the news that Taki was dealing with it at least silenced his lieutenant’s objections. He passed on the orders. Ten minutes later they were crouched at the lip of the furthest sap trench.

“Safe,” Klaus said, after a swift look over the edge. “Twenty metres of scrub and mud between us and the forest. No enemy in sight.”

“Sir, there could be snipers,” said the lieutenant. “We should wait f—”

Adrenaline was flooding through Klaus’ blood. He could smell smoke in the air. “Snipers, huh?” He put his foot on the peg hammered into the side of the trench. “Let’s find out.” He heaved himself over the edge.

That was one way to get the men out of the trench. They poured over the edge after Klaus, and he led them at a low run to the outskirts of the forest.

It provided good enough cover. Just ten metres in, the daylight had dimmed into a deep, sunken green, and the sounds of the open air had narrowed to the rustle of twenty bodies pushing their way through brush. The trees were thick enough that there was barely a breath of wind. Last autumn’s dead leaves still hung on the branches, covering up the struggling new growth. “The _shimenawa_ ,” one of the men whispered, halting.

“Yeah, I see it,” Klaus said. “Positions.” He could smell that damn bonfire again. He didn’t know why it was putting his back up.

The men disappeared into the forest to wait, crouching behind trees and bushes, green uniforms blending with the shades in the undergrowth. Klaus hunkered down close to the rope and stilled.

They were in position early. Klaus had never taken well to waiting, and he mentally cursed the superstition that had them sitting there like lumps while every moment counted. His mind started to turn over the meeting. Surely there couldn’t really be any truth to this ill-luck thing. It was like breaking a mirror: you’d just start seeing supernatural forces behind every time you stumbled or lost something.

The old sticks in the council room had been blowing enough steam from their ears, though. Klaus would usually have found talking to them about as useful as shouting opinions into a deep hole, but it was rare that they all got worked up about the same thing at once.

He growled in impatience under his breath. This was stupid. There was no real risk, of course, but if Taki even _thought_ there might be a risk, he should have ordered Klaus—

But then, Klaus had never needed to wait for orders.

He pushed himself up and strode over to the _shimenawa_ rope, drawing his combat knife from his belt. The rope was tougher than it looked. It took him a couple of curses and some sawing to get it to part.

“What are you doing?” the lieutenant whispered, horrified.

“Quiet,” Klaus said, and watched the severed ends fall with a grunt of satisfaction. “There. Now we wait for Taki’s signal.” The lieutenant was mouthing something else, but Klaus shoved him back into position.

Five minutes later, the radio crackled and barked its quiet orders. One job for Taki well accomplished, another yet to do. He lifted the radio to his mouth.

“Fifth Company here,” he said. “We’re going in.”

 

**

 

The lakes at home had frozen every winter. Klaus remembered them vividly: the clear ice freezing over the dark waters, the snowbound trees standing guard. When they froze thin, you could see the black shadows of fish as they slipped to the surface and dived again. Klaus had never managed to break the ice cleanly enough to fish; after the second time he had fallen in and nearly frozen to death, he had learned not to try it.

Klaus leaned against the wall of the command room back at base, watching Taki debrief his officers, and thought of shadows surfacing from the icy depths.

Taki looked up from his papers as if he had heard something, and met Klaus’ eyes. “Your casualty report,” he ordered.

“Three wounded, no fatalities,” Klaus said, pushing himself off the wall. It was late. The others had given their reports and been dismissed, one by one. Taki had a smear of oil on his cheek and sweat matting his hair from long hours inside the tank, and Klaus could still smell smoke but he wasn’t sure which of them it was. Could be clinging to his own clothes from the forest.

“That brings it to twenty-three,” Taki muttered, making a note. He raised his eyes again and seemed to note for the first time that Klaus was alone in the room. “You’re the last?”

Klaus’ mouth curled. “The rest of them are probably asleep by now. You realise we’ve all been up for twenty-three hours straight, you included?”

Taki hesitated, as if this was new information. “Very well,” he said. “Go and get some sleep.”

There was a time when Klaus wouldn’t have been able to stop the blazing anger that shot down his spine at that casual dismissal. There would have been a time when he would have stepped forward, grabbed Taki’s arm and forced him to acknowledge Klaus as more than just a – a member of Taki’s staff, kept outside his impenetrable walls, sent away at his whim. But they had been through that, and Klaus knew where that led, so he gritted his teeth over the needling echo of the dismissal and said, “Go to bed, Taki. You’re not staying up any longer either.”

Taki’s chin rose automatically. He glared at Klaus, and Klaus glared straight back at him.

Then, to Klaus’ surprise, Taki let out a short puff of breath, a wordless _I see_. “I am not going to my bed while there are wounded to visit,” he said. He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “But first – come here.”

Taki’s words had been careful, almost guarded. Klaus tensed, as if ice had shifted under his feet.

Sometimes he felt that he and Taki had spent months under freezing waters, dragging each other down into the bitter depths where the cold struck like a dagger. They had hauled themselves out by slow and painful inches to lie shivering and lick their wounds on the snow, but it had cost them. And now there was this: this odd wariness between them, like two wolves standing on thin ice, both wanting to come closer, both afraid of the sickening sound of a crack beneath their feet. It was better, now – it could hardly be worse – but they were still working out how much of their weight this new plane would bear.

But through ice or war or fire, the thread Taki had cast around him was there for good. Taki tugged and he went. Klaus pulled his hands out of his pockets and sauntered over as if he was on solid ground.

Taki reached up and took hold of the front of his jacket. Klaus stiffened, taken aback, and then Taki’s mouth was hot on his; Taki’s tongue was reaching in to touch his. Klaus bent down to make it easier and felt a shiver grip him down to the soles of his feet. As Taki was slowly becoming more comfortable with taking the initiative this happened more often, but it hadn’t stopped being a surprise when it happened, like a breath of sweet air in cloud of gun smoke. This was Taki’s gift to him. Klaus still felt the rush of gratitude and wonder at it. He didn’t think that would ever go away.

The hunger overcame Klaus and he bent further into the kiss, one hand seizing Taki’s shoulder in a rough grip. Taki didn’t push him off, only responded, eyes shut, his entire face deep in concentration. Klaus tilted his head to the side, pushing the kiss just enough that Taki pushed back, insistent and challenging. Klaus felt a wash of exhilaration go through him. Taki wanted this. He was enjoying it.

And then Taki broke off, patches of rose on his cheeks, and said, “I’m going to see the injured. Tomorrow, Klaus. Good night.”

“Tomorrow?” Klaus jerked his head back from following Taki’s retreating movement, frustrated. “You want this. I want it. What the hell is wrong?”

Taki stared at him as if this was something very obvious that Klaus was missing. “This is war, Klaus,” he said. “Personal things have to take second place.”

Klaus couldn’t help the growl that started somewhere in his throat. It wasn’t even the thwarted hunger, at this point – Taki had welcomed him to his bed before and wouldn’t say _tomorrow_ if he didn’t mean it. It was being dismissed, again.

He wasn’t going to do anything about it, though. Not this time. _Be a good dog and stay put until your master whistles,_ he thought bitterly.

Taki crossed the room in a cool rustle of cloth. “Well done for today’s sortie,” he said. “You are dismissed until the officers’ morning meeting at eight tomorrow.”

 _No._ Klaus turned as Taki reached the door, fully intending to grab his shoulder, spin him around, and demand at least something more personal than _that_. He reached out his hand.

The door clicked behind Taki. Klaus was still standing in the middle of the room, staring at the back of his hand, and the dark green, ridged line that had grown up across it like a swollen vein.

 

**

 

“What the _fuck_ is this?”

Suguri peered out from his half-open door, his suspicious glare marred by the dark smudges under his eyes. “What do you want? It’s gone midnight and I’ve been on duty for forty-eight hours. Go away.”

“ _This!_ ” Klaus said, baring his forearm. The greenish, vine-like tendril was definitely standing proud of the skin now, stretching it up like a scar ridge. He was feeling the lack of sleep too: even just raising his arm he felt the tiredness seeping into him. But this couldn’t wait.

Suguri rubbed his tired eyes and looked at it. Klaus caught the moment when his face went pale.

“ _You-!_ ” Suguri reached out a hand and grabbed Klaus’ wrist so tightly it was painful – everywhere but on the tendril, which was half-numb and strangely prickly. Suguri’s mouth worked furiously, seeming to pick up and discard several swear words before he got out: “You _fool_ , you touched the _shimenawa_. Didn’t you!”

“Huh?” Klaus connected the word a second after he said it, but refused to get sucked into this madness. “That damn rope? You’re saying a piece of rope gave me, what, _plant pox_?”

Suguri looked up and down the hall, the line of his shoulders tense. “Get in here,” he said, holding the door open for Klaus. “Quickly.”

He slammed the door shut behind Klaus. Klaus turned his head towards the window uneasily, wondering why Suguri had it open in this cold. The breeze was chilly enough for autumn, and carried the faint rustle of dead leaves.

The window was shut. Klaus folded his arms abruptly and said, “Fine, so what’ve you got for plant pox?”

“You’ve been cursed,” Suguri said. “Yes, _cursed_ , you fool,” he added, at Klaus’ look. “There’s nothing I can do for you with medicine.”

“Cursed, what the hell?” Klaus said incredulously. “It’s some kind of disease. Hell, it’s even sticking up from the skin. You can just _cut_ it out.” Suguri had a set of sterilized scalpels set out on the bench he used for his tools. Klaus seized the smallest and nicked at the vine-like ridge to prove it.

The tip of the blade sliced through the skin and the ridge, accompanied by a sharp line of pain. For a moment the cut tendril revealed its contents: white, spongy flesh like the stem of a small plant. Klaus felt a burst of cold – so cold that the blood drips forming from the cut skin felt hot against it. As he looked, the cut tendril grew back on itself, knitting together and forming itself back as smooth as it had ever been. Its dark green case repelled the small flow of blood around it from the nick.

Klaus stared at it and felt his stomach roll.

“Hold still,” Suguri said. He reached over and prodded the ridge. Wherever he touched it, it tingled more unpleasantly, like pressing on a foot that had gone to sleep. He shook his head.

“Give me something for it!” Klaus demanded. “You know what it is, surely you can do something—”

“You have to leave,” Suguri said brusquely. “ _This_ is what Taki was trying to protect against with ceremony when he cut the _shimenawa_. You just cut it with no thought for the consequences. You’ve brought this on yourself.”

Fatigue was making Klaus slow. “ _Taki_ meant to do this?” Yamazaki hadn’t been lying when he said that damn mission was dangerous. Klaus had to suppress the sudden urge to go and grab Taki and check every inch of his skin. But he was sure he’d cut the rope before Taki, and now he was doubly glad he’d done it.

Suguri slapped a square of bandaging on the still-bleeding cut, leaving Klaus to tie it. “He took a calculated risk.”

Klaus’ mouth twisted as he wrapped the bandage around. “He never told me about this.”

“Why would he?”

Of course he wouldn’t. It meant Taki putting himself at risk, and Klaus wasn’t important enough to be consulted on that. Klaus’ fist clenched so hard he could feel the knuckles crack. “The bloody idiot. Did he have some way to cure it?”

Suguri didn’t answer. He spread a cloth over the bandages and scalpels with careful motions.

If Klaus didn’t find an outlet for his rage, he was going to explode. He strode forward and grabbed Suguri by the front of his shirt, lifting him up. “ _Can he cure it?_ ”

Suguri’s hand went to the gun at his hip. Klaus fully expected him to draw it, but he merely kept his hand resting on the holster and glared at Klaus. “There is no cure. You’re polluting him just by being in the same building as him. And after everything you’ve already done to him!”

“What the hell are you accusing me of this time?” Klaus snarled. “Vandalism? Spook crimes?”

Suguri’s face was dark red with rage, but his voice was measured even in its fury. “You disobeyed orders. You transgressed the sacred customs of our land. Get back to the _kami_ and pay the price before you pollute us all.”

As he said that, Klaus felt the cold breeze again in the closed room, bringing with it faint bonfire smoke and the earthy, leaf-mould smell of an autumn forest. An involuntary shiver went through him. He let Suguri go, pushing him away. “I don’t have to,” he growled. “I’ll take it to Taki to fix.”

But Suguri had seen the shiver. “You’re being called, aren’t you?” he said. “You’ll risk his spiritual destruction, you insubordinate, stubborn thug!”

Klaus pulled away. “Is it going to grow?”

“You expect me to be an expert on this?” Suguri said. “You’re the first case I’ve seen! Has it grown since you first noticed it?”

“I only just noticed it!” Klaus bared his arm at Suguri. “Do you think I fucking – measured it—”

He stopped. Both of them looked at the tiny branch tendril that the stem had put out, creeping towards his elbow.

“I can give you morphine,” Suguri said flatly.

“No more morphine!” Klaus said. He didn’t even realise how far he’d raised his voice until he saw Suguri flinch. He took a deep breath in, ignoring the sharp irritation of the cut over the muscle-sapping ache in his arm. He’d promised Taki. Morphine wasn’t an option. “I’m going to bed,” he said. “This is – some kind of rash. It’ll be better in the morning.”

Suguri’s lips pressed together in disapproval, but his hand left his gun holster. “Stay away from Taki,” he said. “That thing on your body is poison to his spiritual purity.”

“Everything about me is _poison to his spiritual purity_ ,” Klaus snarled. “Why the hell should this change anything?” He slammed the door behind him.

 

**

 

In the bitter chill of the pre-dawn morning, when every light was wreathed with its own haze of freezing fog, a young sentry stamped his feet at the small door in the wall to the south-west of the main complex. It had been a service entrance, back in the days when this was still the Reizen winter estate, and it didn’t rate more than one guard. It made for a lonely watch.

The soldier had managed to achieve a half-doze in the cold, propped against the wall in his greatcoat. A shape came tramping from the buildings, bundled up. His eyes flickered to it with vague interest, and after a few more moments it became apparent that the figure was heading his way.

He hurriedly pulled himself to some sort of attention, his hand resting uneasily on his pistol. Nobody should be leaving the compound at this hour. The possibility of a deserter or an escaping intruder flitted across his mind, and he nerved himself up to call out, “Who goes there?”

As the man drew nearer, the guard could see he had a foul-weather oilskin, military issue, over his greatcoat. He had the hood pulled up far over his head, even to the point where it obscured half his face.

“Halt!” the guard called, louder. He unslung his rifle in one swift, adrenaline-fueled movement. “Identify yourself!”

The man carried on, coming towards the gate as if the guard hadn’t spoken. He had a full pack on his back and – the guard saw with a sinking heart – a pistol at his belt. He moved with a limp, as if he was very tired.

The guard stepped in front of the gate and raised his rifle, hands tight on the grip so as not to betray their shaking. “Stop or I shoot!”

The man finally slowed. He didn’t seem intimidated in the slightest by the rifle, and came to a half not half a yard from the mouth of the barrel. The hem of his hood was pulled so low that his eyes were hidden. “Klaus von Wolfstadt,” he said. There was some odd overtone to his voice, like a burr sounding behind his words. “On urgent business from Colonel Taki.”

“ _Captain_ Wolfstadt?” the guard said, half in nervousness and half in relief. He had no business detaining the Colonel’s knight. But still – the captain was a foreigner. “I- I’ll need to see your orders.”

The visible mouth curled in the cold light coming from the guttering bulb over the gate. It wasn’t a smile. “My orders?” the captain said. A hand came up and pushed the hood away in a violent motion. The pale light fell on his face and the soldier recoiled.

Half of his face was covered with a spreading tangle of dark green lines under his skin. The growth had thrown tendrils over one eye, holding it shut. The thickest of them bulged out almost the width of a man’s little finger.

The soldier’s rifle clattered to the ground from numb fingers.

“Still want my orders?” the captain said, his single eye sardonic. It didn’t hide the way he was snatching his breaths or the deep lines of tension on the clear half of his face.

The soldier groped for the lock, making so much haste that he fumbled the key. “Go,” he said, pushing the door open to the road and the cold fields outside. “Get out. Quickly.”

The captain sneered and went to stride past the soldier. He stumbled on the second step, and caught himself. As he went past, there was the faint smell of wood smoke and dry leaves.

 

**

 

Klaus’ show of bravado held up just long enough to get him to the bike. Damn by-the-book recruits. He collapsed over it, shaking. The marks had only reached his thighs – or they had when he dressed, in a haze of panic, that morning – but they seemed to be sapping more energy the closer they were to the ground. His legs were half-numb to the knee. He felt like his body was a marionette that he was trying to pull around on too few strings.

It got better if he rested his muscles for a bit. He sat on the bike, half-slumped, and breathed deep.

Everything ached. He shouldn’t have left it overnight, shouldn’t have given the vines that much time to grow. Sooner or later, it was going to reach his other eye. He had to be away from Taki by that time.

It would have been better if he’d been able to sleep properly, but the moment he’d closed his eyes, his head had filled with the rustle of dead leaves. Sometimes he had been walking in an autumn forest, while crackling fires burned just within hearing somewhere behind the trees. Once, he had reached the top of a hill, in a clearing, and seen the gate to a shrine, and a single wooden votive plaque tied to a tree, the edges of it smouldering as if someone had just tried to set it on fire. Sometimes he had been lying on the branch of a tree, unmoving, while hawks screamed and circled somewhere overhead, unseen.

Sometimes he had been in the ground, the roots of a tree growing around him and wrapping as if he were just a corpse to be absorbed back into the forest. He shuddered. Perversely, though, the nightmare had been almost helpful. After that it had been a relief to wake up to the vine-like growths only covering his chest, not pressing in his ears and eyes and mouth.

He growled deep in his throat and kicked the bike into a roar.

He hadn’t believed this could hurt him. He hadn’t believed it could be any kind of danger to Taki. Stupid, stupid. He had to get away before this hurt him - get away from Taki and get away from that damn shrine. His arms shook on the handlebars.

The spring sunlight grew stronger on the back of his neck as he rode. He stopped twice early on, once to shuck off the oilskin and greatcoat, the second time to pull off his leather gloves. He hardly had any sensation in his vine-covered hands even when they were clenched directly around the handlebars, and there was no one out here to see them and recoil. Each time, he found himself restlessly kicking the bike into motion moments after he’d stopped.

But it wasn’t until he had been riding half the morning, the dirt roads narrowing and becoming littered with hollows and potholes, that he realised that the scenery was familiar.

He was already halfway back to the battlefield.

His mouth had gone dry. He tried to wrench the bike around in a U-turn. He _meant_ to wrench it around, but what he ended up doing was opening the throttle.

He couldn’t turn. He twisted the front wheel between potholes and ridges as the bike roared along at a crazed pace. Klaus could drive recklessly with the best of them, but he wasn’t _suicidal_ like this, especially not when his reactions felt like they were dragging through mud. The smell of wood smoke was so strong that he couldn’t believe the air around him was clear.

He hit the next bump with a jolt that rattled his entire body. The bike skidded and flew sideways.

For a moment he was in the air, twisting, the scenery flashing before his one open eye. He slammed into the earthen ridge at the side of the road. His bike had flown further, and was tumbling over into a paddy field.

 _This should hurt more,_ he thought, staring at the damp earth in front of his face. He had hit the ground with his chest. He’d felt the impact. But there was no pain; all he could feel across his ribs and skin was the half-numb tingling.

At first he thought he was imagining the faint vibration beneath him. As it grew, though, he felt it through his bones - a distant, ominous thrumming in the soil he was lying on. _Earthquake_ , Klaus thought. He couldn’t summon the strength to rise, even as it grew. The smell of smoke intensified until he was nearly gagging on the phantom clouds of it.

_Come here._

The voice wasn’t a sound. It was the vibrations of the earth against his body, settling into his bones. It hurt.

_Come here._

Klaus tried to get to his feet and nearly fell. He could feel a sapping, numbing ache all over his legs, stronger now than in the rest of his body, but nothing else, nothing more specific. His muscles were doing something – they had to be – but he had little sense of them in his right leg and none in his left leg at all, just that prickling. It took him another two stumbling tries before he got the trick of it and balanced.

In front of him, at the end of the potholed road, a thin scattering of trees swiftly grew thicker. The thrumming had sunk into his aching, numbed bones, _No_ , he tried to think. _No, I’m not going in there._ It seemed to work, even – he had to keep walking, but he managed to turn to the left. He set his face away from the forest and stumbled around the edges, among the shrubs and small trees, his shoulders hunched. His left leg wanted to drag like useless flesh. He had to balance it carefully to walk on it, but the ache throbbed through it and his other leg with no variation. The scenery was starting to become familiar, the muddy grass of the battlefield bleeding out into no man’s land in the distance.

It was with a feeling of inevitability that he recognised the tangled ends of a rope hanging from a tree, the severed strands lying in the dirt. Klaus gritted his teeth against what he knew was coming, but his shaking legs were betraying him. It should have been easy to collapse, but he couldn’t make himself do it. The vibrations in his bones pushed him on like someone beating a distant drum.

There was no path. Klaus didn’t even have the energy to curse as he pushed his way through ferns and brambles, his hands shaking and slipping. He was used to the clear pine woods of home, where the trees stood straight and majestic, not this tangled wall of vegetation, gnarly and close, that seemed to want to suck him in and keep him there until the roots had grown over – _no_.

There seemed to be things moving in the distance. Klaus kept turning his head, trying to see out of his one good eye. He couldn’t stop his feet moving for long enough to listen properly, but he could swear he heard sounds that weren’t his footsteps. He could hear a crackling fire, somewhere in the distance.

As he climbed and climbed, he realised it wasn’t his imagination. The air was turning white with gusts of smoke wreathing through the trees.

He pushed the last branch aside and stumbled into a clearing.

In front of him there was a shrine gate. Two round red posts stood straight with two others lashed across the top. Strung from the lower crossbeam was a rope hung with paper strips. Klaus eyed it with the hunted expression of a wolf that has learned to recognise the snare. It was too high to reach, but he had about as much desire to touch it as to gouge out his own eye.

Beyond the gate, there was a fire burning.

It was a pile of dead leaves and branches heaped up like a bonfire. The flames seemed so hot they were almost invisible. Only hints of blue and white shifted above the crackling leaves and distorted everything behind them into green waves.

There was something waiting there. Klaus couldn’t have said how he felt it, but there was something there: something vast and immanent, as old as it was strong. Sweat prickled on his forehead. He tried to force himself to stop, but the thrumming in his bones had reached an unbearable level. _Come here._ His skin felt like electricity was jolting through it. He was going to shake apart. He was going to burn up before he even moved. _Come here. Come here._ He was shaking so much that he was falling forward now, and his legs were moving, carrying him to the gate.

There was nowhere else to go.

A loud _crack_ sounded from behind him. Grass flattened and dirt spurted up not half a yard from his feet. Klaus’ combat reflexes sent him spinning around, looking for the shooter, but his failing body couldn’t cope. He stumbled back against a tree, breath coming in harsh gasps.

“Klaus!” Taki’s voice said sharply.

Klaus’ head snapped up. Taki was standing at the other side of the clearing, his pistol arm held straight. A thin wisp of smoke came from the barrel. His uniform coat was stained with mud and there were two spots of colour high in his cheeks.

“No,” Klaus said, the tree pressing into his aching, prickling back. “ _No_. You shouldn’t be here. Don’t come too close!” He swung his head back around to the fire.

 _Crack_. Another shot sprayed up grass and dirt, closer this time to Klaus’ feet. Taki shifted his aim just slightly. “Take one more step towards that gate,” he said, his voice as uncompromising as his aim, “and I will shoot you in the knee.”

Klaus stared at him for a long, long moment. Then he raised his hands slowly in front of him, barely at shoulder height, spreading his fingers in surrender.

Taki didn’t let the pistol drop as he closed the distance between them. Heat was starting to gust in waves from the gate but Taki seemed heedless of it as he cut straight across the clearing, his heels hitting the grass as if he had a grudge against it.

“How _dare_ you?”

Klaus could barely control his hands enough to keep them raised. The vines felt like they were pulsing. Everything was drawing him to the gate. Its heat was pressing insistently on his marked skin, rousing the vines. Only the thread of connection between his eyes and Taki’s kept him in place.

Taki reached out and seized Klaus’ wrist with his free hand. The vines were so thick now that the skin was only visible in patches. Taki held Klaus’ hand between them as if it was evidence in a trial. “How dare you, Klaus,” he said more quietly, his voice unsteady with fury. “This is unforgivable.” The gun fell from his grip and he clasped Klaus’ hand, palm to palm.

Klaus sucked in a breath. Heat flooded from Taki’s hand like boiling water poured over Klaus’ numb fingers. The vines _shifted_ under his skin. He could feel them move, snaking towards Taki’s grip—

Klaus’ breath nearly stopped as he realised what was happening. “ _What the hell are you doing?_ ” He yanked his wrist away with a burst of terrified force. There was a fine, spidery green line across Taki’s finger.

Taki’s eyes were hard with rage. “Give me your hand,” he commanded.

Klaus put his arms back, gripping the bark of the tree, half to keep them away from Taki and half to stop himself swaying on his feet. “No.”

“Klaus,” Taki said. His voice was soft. It wasn’t a giving sort of soft: it was soft like moss-covered bedrock, like dragon bones gloved in skin. He held up his hand.

In the silence that followed, the side of Klaus’ face felt like it was burning in the heat pouring from the gate. He didn’t move.

Taki measured out each word like a stroke of black ink. “You will obey me.”

Klaus barely felt his knees hitting the ground. “Taki—” he said. Taki glared at him. Klaus could feel the force of it on his skin, like Taki’s resolve was as strong as the heat itself. “My lord,” Klaus said, and bowed his head against that implacable will. “I won’t.”

Every nerve was strained, every sense attuned to Taki. When Taki breathed, Klaus felt it and steeled himself.

“How can you kneel just to defy me?” Taki said, still in the quiet that preceded a storm front. “Do you deny you are my knight?”

The tingling flared in Klaus’ chest until it hurt. His arm moved slowly as he reached out, barely able to keep it under his own control, and the vines stretched with the muscles and writhed on his arm. His hand shook like an old man’s. Once that would have been humiliating; now he didn’t care. He took the hem of Taki’s long coat between his fingers and brought it towards him, and kissed it. “Never.”

Taki looked down at him and his expression seemed to soften in spite of himself. Klaus let the hem fall from numb fingers. “I cannot lose you,” Taki said. “Klaus, you will transfer your curse to me.” At Klaus’ silence, he added, “Must I remind you that you are bound to my word?”

“I am your sword and I am controlled by your hand,” Klaus said. He shut his eyes. “But you cannot ask me to be the death of my master.”

Taki drew a furious breath, but before he could speak, a wall of heat hit both of them from the side. Klaus choked and turned his head. The grass was crackling between them and the gate in an arc, turning brown and curling up in invisible flames. Smoke flooded the clearing. Above him, he could hear Taki choking as well. And a voice. A voice, silent as the flames were invisible, that shook the entire hill.

_Enough!_

Klaus had to catch himself with his hands on the ground. The flames were growing around the gate. Something incorporeal was there, rearing up and around the flames, visible only in the distortion of the sky and trees and smoke. And as it grew, the vines in Klaus’ skin responded with the most searing pain he had ever experienced. A wave of nausea hit him. His head blanked. It felt like every line had turned into a branding iron pressed to his skin. His legs, his chest, his face – the pain was everything.

“Klaus? Klaus, stay with me!”

After the first, eternal space of agony, Klaus realised he could draw breath. There was something cooling the excruciating heat on his skin, and arms wrapped around him, the solid presence of a body against his. Taki was kneeling up, pressed against his back. Klaus could feel an aura of cooling power around him, keeping back the flames.

Klaus drew another breath, full of smoke, and another, and coughed. Everything in front of him was still black. He realised from the distribution of pain on his face that his other eye had been sealed shut.

Taki was speaking. “…offer up my humblest apologies. We committed it with the greatest reluctance, accompanied with all due ceremony—”

 _Afterwards_ , the voice said, and Klaus threw his head back with a sound of pain. Taki’s arms tightened around him, pressing Klaus closer against him. The pain was less agonising wherever he was in contact with Taki, but the voice didn’t stop. _After it had been hacked away by this brute with an unclean knife._

“He did it on my orders!” Taki said. “It is my responsibility!”

Klaus tried to make a protest at that. His throat muscles didn’t work.

_No lies. Not even from you, Reizen child._

Klaus had reached some sort of strange higher plane from the agony, because he swore he could feel Taki’s despair through the skin in his back. “Land,” Taki said swiftly. “I can double your sacred ground. Please consider—”

 _After this? No!_ The shaking of the ground redoubled. _Give me the body._

The pain pulsed and faded and pulsed again. Klaus managed to find scraps of his voice, through a throat that felt like raw sandpaper. “Let me – go,” he rasped. “Taki.” He had to stop and take a breath between the words. “Let me go.”

“No!” Taki said, flinging the word like a hurled stone at both Klaus and whatever was beyond him. “He is _mine_.”

_He is the price._

“He is my knight,” Taki said, and Klaus had never heard this fury in his voice before. “My hand. My sword. _Mine!_ ” Klaus pulled forward with the last of his energy, making a final effort to crawl to the gate, but Taki shifted his hand until it was over Klaus’ chest and held him so tightly he was stopped. Something had changed. He could feel the thrumming come from Taki himself, and his grip was no longer cool, but prickling with heat. It set off the vines along Klaus’ skin as if an icepack had been lifted away, and Klaus ducked his head at the sudden renewed pain and nausea.

 _You dare?_ the presence rumbled, sending white spikes of agony through him. It felt bone-deep, now, not just his skin but everything. A wind was picking up. The smoke blew into his face in a hot, bitter breeze.

“I will fight you with everything I have,” Taki said. His voice was no longer raised, but had become a soft, physical vibration. “ _Everything_.”

The smoke filled Klaus’ nose and mouth, cutting off his air. It was all of a piece with the pain, one dark, tangled cloud of agony. _Get out, Taki,_ he thought, but he could no more have formed coherent words than levelled the hill.

 _You would not!_ The voice was deafening, in Klaus’ bones and his ears, in the smoke and the earth and the overwhelming heat. _You would destroy us both!_

“And I will do that. _Let him go!_ ”

Klaus could no longer tell which of the presences was speaking. “Taki,” he gasped, trying to suck in air that wouldn’t come. “Taki.”

The rumbling was constant now, words piling on words as Klaus spiralled into the dark. _I do not need useless corpses. Look at your prized possession._

“Klaus!” Taki said sharply, suddenly agonised. “ _Klaus!_ ”

Klaus’s head fell forwards and hit the crackling ground.

 

**

 

Klaus woke to the faint, far-off scent of flowers. For a moment, it seemed as if he could catch it more strongly if he turned his head, but he couldn’t make his body respond. He didn’t hurt – he just felt like a wrung-out cloth. He took a breath of clean air, free of smoke.

“Awake?”

He was lying on the ground, his head resting in someone’s lap, and when he opened his eyes he could see clear sky, and Taki’s face above him.

“Yeah,” Klaus said, and as he spoke, realised that actually his leg hurt like _fuck_. “Ow, shit.”

“Your left leg is broken,” Taki said, not moving from where he had his hands cupped around Klaus’ head, cushioning it in his lap. “I checked it when you were unconscious.”

“Fell off the bike,” Klaus said. He blinked again, glad his eyes didn’t seem to have been damaged. The vines were gone. They were somewhere near the edge of the forest, on a grassy bank where the trees gave out. The grass was flattened behind them in a swathe; Taki must have dragged him down here. The one tree Klaus could see was sprinkled with a fine mist of white blossom. “What the hell happened?”

“The _kami_ accepted the offering of land,” Taki said. There was soot down his face, and he looked paler than usual. “I guessed it was bluffing. It took – some effort to convince it and get you out of there.”

“ _Bluffing?_ ” It was hard to get the words in a line, but for that Klaus would try. “What the hell did you _do_ to it?What kind of things _can_ you do?”

Taki said nothing for a full ten seconds. “We found the bike,” he said eventually. “It’s a miracle you were able to get up there.”

Klaus was too exhausted to pursue it. “Fucking miracles.” Klaus could have used some magical assistance right now, since they weren’t going to be able to stay here and Taki couldn’t drag him all the way home. He tried to draw his left leg up. The ankle dragged at a strange angle and the stab of pain made him lose control of the muscles. “ _Shit_.”

“Stay still,” Taki said. “I’ve radioed for an ambulance.”

Klaus grimaced. “Suguri.”

“You’ll cooperate with the doctors and be glad of it,” Taki said brusquely. “You did this to yourself.” His hand traced the curve of Klaus’ face. “A fine sword, that wanders off on its own to throw itself into the fire.”

Klaus let out a breath, amusement ghosting a thin layer over the pain. “Fine owner you are, chatting to your tools,” he said. “Isn’t this like talking to a hammer?”

“Klaus,” Taki said, “you have _no idea_ just how much conversations with you are like talking to a dense metal object.”

Klaus almost grinned. Taki spent so much of his time in fierce, single-minded devotion to duty that his flashes of humour were buried as deep as his passions: guarded, precious, and shown only to Klaus. “I’m sorry.”

He had meant to make the apology a joking one, but the words that came out were weighted with guilt. Klaus shut his eyes. He had never meant Taki to put himself in danger coming after him.

“You should be,” Taki said, low and intense. “You should have come to me.”

Klaus grunted as he tried to shift his leg to some position that didn’t hurt. “Didn’t want to infect you.” Apparently that position didn’t exist. Damn.

Taki’s hands cupped his chin, forcing Klaus’ attention back to his eyes. “Never, _never_ keep anything like that secret from me again,” he said. “You will come to me. You may not cast away _anything_ of mine so selfishly, least of all what I value above everything.”

That hit Klaus like a punch to the gut, robbing him of breath. He stared up at Taki. "Taki," he said, and had to stop. There were years' worth of words banked up behind that dam - months of rejection, of suspecting he was tolerated but not loved, of reading desperate signs into orders and touches and glances. Taki had cared for him when he was wounded, but in his darker moments Klaus thought it was no different from Taki doing his duty by everyone else.

But - _what I value above everything_ , he had said.

"Taki," Klaus said, trying to make him understand, even though he knew he wasn't at his most coherent. "I'm not worth that. You-”

"I decide," Taki interrupted him. " _I_ decide what I value, Klaus. You are precious to me and I will not lose you. Not even to protect me! Do you understand?”

Taki’s attention was like the fierce brightness of cool spring sunlight, his head bent over Klaus’, his face and gaze everything in Klaus’ world. Klaus reached up with one blessedly working, responsive arm, the skin free of vines, and pulled his bent head down a little further. “I do, my master,” he said, and closed his mouth on Taki’s.


End file.
